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A friend once suggested I watch the Netflix series The Walking Dead. He acknowledged that it’s a show about Zombies but that I should give it a try because it has a number of themes that make it compelling drama. I hadn’t watched a Zombie movie since the days of the classics from the 70’s and 80’s; Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, so I was a bit hesitant, but I decided to watch the first episode of The Walking Dead and give it a shot. Here are a couple of observations. One: zombies are tough. If you know anything about Zombies then you know you can’t kill them easily. It’s common knowledge that you have to cut off their heads (or more specifically, destroy their brains) otherwise they will just pop right back to life. Two: whenever you think they’re dead, they’re not. And three: if you think they’re alive, they aren’t really alive either. That’s the thing about Zombies, they’re neither alive nor dead. They exist in a state of limbo between death and life.
In the first episode of the Walking Dead, a man had to wrestle with whether or not to kill his wife who had become a Zombie. The reason he believed he should kill her is because he didn’t want to leave her in that in-between state, living as a Zombie. He believed it would be more humane to kill her rather than to let her continue to live in her Zombie condition.
I wonder if that’s what Jesus was talking about when he said “I have come that they may have life and have it in all its fullness.” (John 10:10) Perhaps he was trying to save us from Zombie living; as people who walk around eating, drinking and working without any real sense of a fullness of life. He couldn’t bear to see us living in the state we’re in, so he offered us his presence and his teachings that we might have life to the full. It’s so easy to get lost in the shuffle of a mundane life; forgetting that life is meant to be lived to the fullest. Jesus’ words in John 10 invite us into a life of fullness and abundance. How we get that life is easier than it may seem. It’s ours for the asking. All it takes is an intentional willingness to engage with God, asking him to fill us with his life-giving presence at the start of each and every day. Perhaps our prayers this week can focus on allowing God’s spirit to fill us so that we can walk around less like Zombies and more like people who are not just alive, but living life to the full.
(This devotional is written in honor and memory of Dan Dalke; a former colleague and friend. He was a Zombie fanatic and a man of faith.)
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